Five nations signed an agreement yesterday to set up a European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) that would offer paramilitary support for international peacekeeping missions.
Ministers said the 3,000-strong force would tackle a damaging shortfall in recent peacekeeping operations by backing up military efforts to enforce public order, fight crime and train local police in the wake of a crisis.
"This force will become an important capability, bridging the gap between military forces and civil police," Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp said.
The force should be operational next year. It will include elements from the French gendarmes, Italian Carabinieri and their equivalents in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
The EGF will have a core of 800 to 900 members ready to deploy within 30 days and a pool of 2,300 reinforcements on standby. It will be headquartered in Vicenza in northeastern Italy.
Defense ministers from the five nations signed the agreement to set up the force on the sidelines of a meeting with their colleagues from all 25 EU nations. The other EU countries will not participate because they do not have such paramilitary police.
"We will keep it open to other countries that don't yet have gendarme forces but may want to join later," said French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who first suggested the idea of the European force last year.
Following experiences with peacekeeping in the Balkans, European planners say gendarme units are increasingly necessary. The need was highlighted in March, when NATO troops were caught unaware by mob violence in Kosovo that left 19 people dead.
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